In nautilus 49.3, when you change the sort mode (alphabetical, chronological, size …) it moves the scroll position to keep the view centered around the current selected item. While I guess this is useful if you are interested in the finding which files are “close” to the current selected file, this is not what I’m interested in when I change the sort mode, and this not how any other program I know work, (and I believe nautilus did not act that way before version 49 either).
I usually change sort mode to view which file is the newest/oldest/biggest/smallest/etc, so I would much rather that the scroll position stays the same when changing sort mode. With the current implementation, you have to manually scroll back to the top each time you change the sort order.
Moreover, the scroll position changes even if you don’t have any item visibly selected ! In nautilus, if you click outside the item list, it deselects, but the view stays centered around the last selected item when you change the sort mode. If you just landed in a new folder, the first item is implicitly used for view scrolling on sort mode change, but nothing indicates it. I found those behaviors really unintuitive.
My proposal is to entirely drop the “keep view centered around (possibly implicitly) selected item”, and go back to the regular “just keep scroll position”.
Arrrr, I have to say I strongly disagree and considers the entire behavior a bug. But I’m curious: what is your use case for having the view follow the selected item when changing sort mode ?
this bug is really annoying. i never realized it really cuz i never paid attention to it till today. had folders with thousands of files open and had to compare just the first and last files side by side and tried for gods sake to sort by file size.
normally files are sorted by their names and this was the first time i noticed that when clicking the size tab, it pulls me way down to the bottom with lets say file xxy in front of me…click again and it brings me way up again with the same file xxy in front of me. so i am thinking what exactly is the reason they put sort feature in it. wanted to create a issue on github and landed here. glad i found your post so i am not alone with that issue.
does someone by any chance know an approx. fixrate after ppl point out bugs here? and do they even pay attention to ppl’s bugs posted here? i wonder if there is a bug related support team between users and devs for the gnome project. i don’t wanna sound mean cuz that is 100% not my intention. i am really thankful for the whole Linux World and all ppl involved, spending their lifetime to make that happen:) thank you all devs for doing what you doing:)
